The Fabelmans (2022) ***

A portrait of the most successful Hollywood film director as a young man, growing up in America from 1952 to 1965.

West Side Story (2021) ***

An inferior remake of the 1961 Oscar-winning classic. Still impressive for its great songs and superbly choreographed musical numbers.

Ready Player One (2018) **

Entertaining, but predictable.

The Post (2017) ****

Excellent film about the publication of the Pentagon Papers by the Washington Post. Steven Spielberg at his best.

Bridge Of Spies (2015) **

Fine Cold War spy drama about the exchange of Gary Powers for a KGB agent. Based on a true story, and therefore quite predictable.

Lincoln (2012) **

Conventional, classical and academic film about the legendary president.

The Adventures Of Tintin (2011) ***

An exciting animated action film based on the famous European comic books. Here, Tintin resembles an all-American action hero (a diminutive Bruce Willis with a weird hairdo) more than the original Hergé creation, but director Steven Spielberg nonetheless managed to accurately depict many memorable supporting characters, including Captain Haddock, Dupont and Dupond (Thomson and Thompson) and Bianca Castafiore. Only Professor Tournesol (Calculus) fails to make an appearance. The story is based on three Tintin's books (“Le Secret de la Licorne”, “Le Trésor de Rackman le Rouge” and “Le Crabe aux pinces d'or”), with one scene taken from “Coke en stock”, but most of the film's second half is entirely original, including the most exciting action pieces (essentially, everything from Tintin's arrival in the Arab prince's palace to the dueling port cranes is nowhere to be found in any of Hergé's books).

War Horse (2011) *

Dated, old-fashioned, emotionally manipulative war melodrama from Steven Spielberg. Not as bad as "Always" (1989), but almost.

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008) *

The weakest of all four Indiana Jones flicks (yes, even worse than "The Temple of Doom"), a lousy adventure film about alien creatures from a mysterious city lost in the Amazonian jungle. Cate Blanchett steals the movie as a hilarious Soviet spy (possibly inspired by Natasha from "Rocky and Bullwinkle").

Munich (2005) ***

Steven Spielberg's ''Munich'' provoked quite a storm of controversy when it was released. The film was accused of excessively humanizing the Palestinian terrorists who organized the massacre of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics. A Mossad hit squad is ordered (by Golda Meir herself) to find those terrorists and to kill them in retaliation. As the film progresses, the team leader (played by Eric Bana) becomes progressively disillusioned with his mission and eventually leaves not only Mossad, but even Israel, and moves to the United States. The last, very controversial, shot of the film shows the World Trade Centre, clearly suggesting that all those killing have only lead to more terrorist attacks, including 9/11. The defeatist tone of the film is compounded by the fact that Spielberg doesn’t offer any alternative solutions. His point seems to be that while the retaliation was totally useless, there was nothing else that the Israelis could have done anyway. Quite a depressing message. Overall, this is one of Spielberg’s weakest films, but it's never boring. Just a minor work of a major filmmaker.

War Of The Worlds (2005) *

Probably Steven Spielberg's worst film.

The Terminal (2004) **

Catch Me If You Can (2002) ****

Entertaining drama starring Leonardo di Caprio and Tom Hanks.

Minority Report (2002) ***

Spielberg's craftsmanship at its best.

Artificial Intelligence A.I. (2001) *

A schizophrenic, but interesting clash of two very different artistic visions: Stanley Kubrick's, who prepared the film shortly before his death (and whose vision clearly dominates the first half) and Steven Spielberg's, who ended up directing it (and whose vision clearly dominates in the second half). The results are quite disappointing.

Saving Private Ryan (1998) ***

Tense war drama set during the Normandy invasion.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) ***

There are more dinosaurs in this one, but they are less scary.

Amistad (1997) **

Schindler's List (1993) *****

Jurassic Park (1993) ****

Superb mixture of horror and sci-fi genres, based on Michael Crichton's bestselling novel.